That local rock group down the street that’s trying hard to learn their song?

Well, that local rock group is me. I play drums in a Monkees cover band.

Please note that I did not say “tribute” band. The Stepping Stones do not try to re-create the Monkees experience. We do not wear matching red, double-placket shirts. Our lead guitarist does not wear a green woolly hat.

We are not like the Missing Links, a band out of Los Angeles that won the coveted Cloney Award, given by the International Guild of Celebrity Impersonators and Tribute Artists.

We are not like Pleasant Valley Sunday, another Monkees tribute band from Southern California that actually performs with a laugh track.

“If mentioned in television histories at all, The Monkees were seen as the bastard child when discussing counter-culture humor in 1960s television, behind Laugh-In and The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, yet they prefigured and influenced both of those programs.”